still backstage… now we’re done with the pre-show and it’s time to settle things out i suppose… we’ve had some pretty good highlights from the backstage guests including a freestyle performance from KJ-52 who had just won a Dove for rap song of the year (later won rap album of the year)… i don’t need to comment on that… Steven Curtis Chapman dodged a bullet with a very well thought out response to the age-old question about bands who claim to be Christians but don’t say “Jesus” in their music that much and Brit Nicole, a new artist, who is planning on starting up a website to openly discuss some of the prominent and tough issues that this generation is facing…

Okay, now for some more winners…

- Long Form Video: Time Again (Amy Grant)
- Short Form Video: Jars of Clay
- Packaging: Jeremy Camp
- Special Event: Everything Glorious (Passion)
-Praise & Worship Album: See the Morning (Chris Tomlin)
- Christmas Album : Christmas Offerings (Third Day)
- Instrumental Album: End of the Spear
- Children’s Music Album: Veggietales Worship
- Pop/Contemporary Album: See the Morning (Chris Tomlin)
- Rock/Contemporary Album: Good Monsters (Jars of Clay)
- Rock Album: DecembeRadio (DecembeRadio)
- Rap/Hip Hop Album: Remixed (KJ-52)

more in a bit…

peace… love… bdg…

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well, i’ve foolishly lost my post from this backstage area because i decided to just post it all right in the box there and apparently when i hit post, the connection was lost… bummer… so, now, we’re about 2 hours into the pre-show and we still have no idea who the host is but there have been moments of humor sprinkled in this evening… some unintentional… for instance when he introduced “Down Under” a.k.a. Downhere… a bunch of awards have already been given out – they come fast and furious – and i’m going to sort this all out in a second, but i wanted to go ahead and get the first post up for the night at least…

peace… love… bdg…

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so today is already a blur… but here’s what’s mixed into the scenery… RED went well i suppose, it’s tough to know what to ask sometimes when there’s no new album or anything coming up, especially that early… Anyway, Casting Crowns were rather nice, we talked about their trip to North Korea and more, Flatfoot56 are tall, and the Monk & Neagle mini-showcase was really nice… i had to truck up to the 18th floor on the other side of the building, but they played three songs for a rather small gathering of us media folk which was pretty cool… not sure how i got included in that, but i enjoyed it…

then, back downstairs for Leeland, Jars and Wavorly, which is a new group that was pretty fun to chat with… clearly everyone was pretty tired and some of the interviews ended up being a lot shorter than i expected or hoped… bummer, but such is life i suppose…

i swept through the booths after finishing up with Wavorly and met up with one of my co-workers from ABS to see how the week had been going for them… They’ve been shooting video footage of artists for shareyourstorynow.org and it was good to hear that things had been going pretty well… if all continues to go this well, there may be some changes made in my job description and whatnot… never know what God’s doing…

after that – and a quick bit of scavenging the press room – i made the decision to drop a bunch of stuff off at the room before heading down to the Word sponsored fondue event which may or may not have been called, “What Would Jesus Fondue?”… that was kind of a mess, in every sense of the word… fondue in and of itself can be messy, but if you add a lot of motion to it, then it just gets worse and worse… if my memory serves me correctly (and Plumb will agree that it is trustworthy), this is the order of artists that i visited with… Salvador, Plumb, BarlowGirl, Jackson Waters, mikeschair, NeedToBreathe, Point of Grace, Pocket Full of Rocks, Mark Roach, Nicol Sponberg, Marie Miller, Mark Schultz, Group 1 Crew, Nate Sallie, Big Daddy Weave, pureNRG and Building 429… any weight that i may have gained was lost in all the shuffling around and balancing of plates, utensils and everything else…

from there, i quickly made my way to the riverboat and enjoyed the food and music there… not much as far as conversation went on, but we saw some performances by Casting Crowns, John Waller, Leeland, Monk & Neagle, and Michael W Smith as well as some Presidential Volunteer Service Awards given out to Brian Littrell (for his work with The Healthy Heart Club for Kids and Jars of Clay (for their work through Blood:Water Mission)… also there was Bingo and a very good meal, though i wasn’t quite hungry yet…

there’s more from tonight, but i really need to get to bed… pretty light day and i get to sleep in a bit, but i still have 3 interviews to do and then the Doves and a very late night ahead followed by a fairly early trip to the airport… Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the guest blogs…

peace… love… bdg…

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GMA…
This was my first experience at GMA, as an artist, and I really enjoyed it. It was very
interesting to see all of what Christian music has to offer these days. To be real honest
I felt like I should have made my hair look a little more crazy and maybe rip the sleeves
off my shirt, but that just wouldn’t be me. For a while I felt like I was at a punk rock
festival. LOL..it was very cool. My favorite part was getting to listen to all the
different genres of music. I remember a couple of years ago there was very little variety
when it came to Christian music. Now there is truly something for everyone. Overall, I
can say I am very excited about the future of Christian music, and very excited to be a
part of it.
Mike Kofahl
Austins Bridge

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So we just got back from our first GMA event. WOW! There are so many artist and industry reps represented there it’s ridiculous. It’s so cool though to walk into a room and see guys like Stellar Kart (good friends of mine) Avalon, Mac Powell of Third Day, Shane and Shane, Jackson Waters, Group One Crew, and many many more, and just sit down and talk to them about your experiences on the road and how there carriers are going. I learned a lot of valuable information about things to work on or ways to go about doing the “business of music” as an artist. We had many opportunities to rub elbows with some influential people at Words meet and greet that afternoon as well as the interviews we did for World Vision.

The coolest thing though, had to be the World Vision showcases. It was so rewarding to see some of these acts get up and have an opportunity to command a stage and a room full of people only to turn it around and lead in worship or some old hymns in an effort to give God glory for where they are today. There was a sweet spirit in some of those shows. Shane Bernard was my favorite. He had recently been oversees to work with children of a third world country. Every time he attempted to express what he saw and his experience he simply broke down in tears. He had become aware of how selfish we are here in the states and how unimportant material THINGS are. It was incredibly moving. Closing his set out with an acoustic rendition of Amazing Grace the entire audience (of artists and record execs) stood to there feet in honor and admonition of our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Recognizing that He is the only one worthy to be worshiped and adored. Tears rolled down my face as I began to realize once again why I am in this business. People need to see the truth and they need to see it in a real way. Day 1…..Amazing.

Jason Baird (Austins Bridge)

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April 23, 2006
Today was an incredible day for Hope’s Call! We started our GMA day with a WORD Meet and Greet. It was an 80’s theme! Oh how I remember the 80’s! Big, huge bangs and side pony tails…overdone make up….lol…ick…Hope that fashion doesn’t return!

Anyway…following the Meet and Greet, we sang in a showcase for New Day Christian Distributors…We sang with some other groups and soloists and I loved them! Gordon Mote is one of my favorites anyway, and then here was this new guy, Nate Huss…LOVED HIM! There was a lot of awesome talent including our label mates, Austins Bridge! I am a FAN.

After the showcase, we headed to Rocket Town for a Compassion dinner! It was AWESOME! We work with the ministry of Compassion. They are an amazing child relief organization. They work at physical poverty, but their main focus is the poverty of the soul. Last year over 100,000 kids were saved through that ministry! We are honored to be a part. Eddie spoke (he is in our group) and in addition, Bebo Norman spoke. The president of Compassion was the final speaker and his words pierced my heart. One thing he said was…When he gets to heaven he hopes God will not just wipe the tears from his eyes but also the sweat from his brow for all the laboring he did to lift children out of poverty in Jesus’ name! I love that. That statement impacted me!

My evening closed with a stop to hear Avalon and Israel Houghton and New Breed…Needless to say the day ended incredibly! I love GMA week!
-Donna Beauvais, Hope’s Call

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down in the west end of the NCC chink-chinking up the track ready to plummet down into the stream of morning interviews… still trying to shake off this fog of sleeplessness and weariness… working on my second cup of coffee… and definitely still ready for a couple more hours of sleep… at least it’s cool down here… it’s pretty nice… this morning i’ll be talking with RED, Casting Crowns, Flatfoot 56, Monk & Neagle, Leeland, Jars of Clay (Steve and Charlie) and Wavorly…

after that, i plan on cruising through the booths and displays before heading down to the Melting Pot for another stream of 20 some artists… to quote Verbs… gotta keep movin, that’s for real…

peace… love… bdg…

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i talk too much and i’m tired… beat… exhausted really… and i’m way behind on keeping you up to speed with the events of this week… so here’s some of the quickness to hopefully catch up…

first, about last night… we went to the songwriter’s showcase, an event i skipped out on last year in order to attend the indie community showcase… this year, i wanted to see the songwriters… so that’s what i did… hosted by Mandisa and Mark Schultz, the event was quite enjoyable… even when Mark was awkwardly and uncomfortably “hitting on” Mandisa… the theme of the first set was “alright” and it started on a high note with Sanctus Real’s acoustic version of “I’m Not Alright“… spectacular… the rest if the first set didn’t do much for me, but Mandisa closed it out with a new song – i think she said that it was the lead single – and it was cool and all, but my favorite part of that performance was Matthew West’s sweater which had a lightning bolt on the back…

Set two began with DecembeRadio performing “Drifter” and included Ian Eskelin trying to sing “Me and Jesus” – it was quite a strain – Chris Tomlin performing “Made to Worship”, which bled into “How Great Is Our God” and Mark Schultz closed with “I Am” the final set included BarlowGirl and ended with Mark Hall, who recently won the BMI songwriter of the year honors… good experience… and apparently the one and only Chris Sligh showed up, but i didn’t actually see him…

back to today’s past… still haven’t finished typing up the article, but i did interview Britt Nicole and got some great gangsta cookies and fellowship with the Scribbling Idiots, Ajax, Sintax, and the Illect Crew… thanks guys you’re an oasis where ever you go…

next came dinner with the amigos and a publicist, to which i was late for various reasons… we did have a great time though… we all seemed to fall right into step with each other and the conversation just flowed very nicely… good times and good food… and man, was that a lot of nachos… we ordered a “half order” of nachos for the table and it took up the whole center of the table… it was like a fruit basket but with chips, salsa, peppers, chili and the like…

after dinner we headed back the room for a little bit, planning on going to the Sanctus Real show, featuring NEEDTOBREATHE, This Beautiful Republic, Jon Foreman and Future of Forestry… we caught the shuttle and headed to the Exit\In only to find a line down the block and the knowledge that it was a 21 and older show – not a problem for me, mind you, but i remembered the line at the Exit\In from last year all too well….so we got back on the shuttle and enjoyed the comfortable round-trip ride…

Josh and I headed down to BB Kings to check out the Yellow Tangerine showcase – mainly for The Afters – and then Kevin Max’s closing performance at the Dog and Pony Show… The Afters were solid…they played some new songs and some favorites… Kevin was delayed because of people staying on stage too long or setting up too slowly or some combination thereof… and he started off really slow… i mean, really slow… i was about to conclude that he was past his time, but he really picked things up on the second half of the set… Luna Halo played the role of his band…

okay… then we tried to go to a gas station that has “Open 24 Hours” posted on its locked doors… i just wanted a soda… so instead we got change at the front desk and went to the machine where i got 2 sodas and all my quarters back… fair enough…

and now i’m done… seriously, i’m gonna crash… tomorrow is the earliest and busiest day of all… six interviews and a mini-showcase all before noon… then a 4-hour media block engagement followed immediately by a dinner cruise… then showcases… YOWSAS!… hopefully i’ll have a chance to get an update in there somewhere…

peace… love… bdg…

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Something i like to do is turn things over to some of the artists here at GMA Week and let them tell you what their week is like… our first such entry comes from Rush of Fools, the new band from Midas Records…

Overwhelming! That is how we would describe our first full day of GMA experiences. We spent the day today meeting amazing new friends in the media world. We did a number of interviews today with radio stations from around the country and also interviews with magazines and papers. We got back to the Patton House Entertainment Suite this morning from a break when we got the word that our single, “UNDO” went #1 on three different AC charts today. We really are not sure what do think of that, other than we are very grateful for the Lord using 5 guys who love the Lord and love music to minister to so many around the country!

Tonight we had the pleasure of going to the ASCAP Christian Music Award dinner. We had great fun meeting Mark Harris, Chris Tomlin, Sanctus Real, Brian Littrell and others. When we got back in our van to head back downtown, Jacob said, “Guys, isn’t it strange to be in a room with all those great people?” It’s all so new for us.

Finally tonight, we got to showcase at 12th and Porter in downtown Nashville. It was a short, but great time sharing our music. If you are reading this and you came out, thank so much!

As always, we hope that you’ll check our our website at rushoffools.com and/or our myspace page at myspace.com/rushoffools!

Talk at you Tuesday night!

Rush Of Fools

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or not… i guess those were all cancelled on me… fair enough… well… i’m working a bit on my article and i’m charging up my technical marvals… then i head over to interview Britt Nicole and hit up the illect recordings/sphere of hip hop suite for some good rap cookies….

peace… love… bdg…

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